


The slightly awkward courtship rituals of teachers and time lords

by capalxii



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fade to Black, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1325758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capalxii/pseuds/capalxii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where the Doctor tries to hide his feelings, Clara is a bit oblivious to her own, and Danny has a crush on every time traveler. Written prior to series 8. Largely fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. When this story was started, there were two original characters--one man and one woman--because I thought Clara needed friends. Then Danny Pink was announced, and I reduced it to one original character who gets written out about halfway through (though she does get a happy ending). 
> 
> 2\. Danny might as well be an original character, since at the time of posting he exists in nothing more than a BBC promo shot/description and some on-set videos taken by fans. Twelve isn't quite that much of a blank slate, but he's close enough. Read at your own risk.
> 
> 3\. There were two main reasons for writing this fic: a. on Tumblr there were a few posts theorizing/hoping that Danny would be evil, and while that's fine, I want him to be all sweetness and light and so I wrote him all sweetness and light. b. Samuel Anderson and Jenna Coleman are exceedingly pretty people, and Peter Capaldi is a charmingly handsome owl-velociraptor-hybrid, and I wanted to smush them together. That's it. That's literally it. Again, read at your own risk.
> 
> 4\. The planet of shrimp is from Angel: The Series.

"So when will we meet him, then?"

Accosted in the staff break room. Of course. Clara rolled her eyes and pulled her lunch out of the microwave before turning back to her closest friend at the school; Lizzie looked more like one of their students, bouncing up on the balls of her feet as she grinned at Clara. "Meet who?" she asked, feigning innocence with a smile. 

Lizzie tutted and dragged Clara over to the table. At least none of the other teachers were there, Clara didn't know what to do if she'd had to have this conversation with colleagues who had actual seniority to her. "Don't be coy. You were devastated after Christmas and now you're not. You've got a new man in your life." 

"I do not." Technically true.

"All right, a new woman. Who is it? What are they like? What do they do?"

"Nobody, I've got nobody," Clara said, her smile flustered. She shook her head quickly when she realized what that sounded like. "I mean--it's not like that. Everything is fine."

Lizzie arched a single perfect eyebrow. "Everything is fine? All right. It's Friday. We're going out and getting pissed and you're going to spill just how fine everything is."

Clara glared at her but it had no effect. Lizzie was the absolute worst sometimes--the only person Clara knew who was not susceptible to her glares, which she thought were really quite powerful all things considered. They worked on aliens, they worked on students, they worked on members of the school board, they should work on coworkers, right? "I don't get pissed."

"I seem to remember more than a few times-"

"I can hold my liquor."

"Yeah. You can hold it in your hand until you've drank it. You're not getting out of this one, Ozzy."

Clara grimaced but there was no weight behind it. "Don't call me Ozzy."

"You love it when I call you Ozzy," Lizzie said. "See you after work, Clare-bear."

Lizzie was gone in a whirlwind of movement by the time Clara grumped out, "Don't call me that either."

*

As she nursed her third beer, she cursed her size and genetics because Lizzie was finished pretending to care about other things and had moved on to the "ask Clara questions about her new gent" portion of the evening. "Give me something to go on," Lizzie pressed. "Tall, short, skinny, fat, what's he look like."

"He looks like a friend," Clara said. She peeled at the label of her beer. "Just a friend, that's all. We're mates."

"If that's the case why've you been avoiding Danny for the past three weeks?" Danny, who was tall, lean, handsome enough to be in Hollywood or at least the Canadian version of Hollywood, which these days was often more handsome than the Hollywood version of Hollywood--at any rate, he was handsome. And Clara liked him well enough in that vague, generic way that you like friendly people, but she didn't know him all that well outside of work. 

She was fairly certain she hadn't been avoiding him, and said so.

"He's been making eyes at you from across the room the past ten minutes," Lizzie said. "Go over there and talk to him if you're 'just mates' with this mystery bloke."

Clara dodged the challenge completely and scowled at Lizzie instead. "How did you even know that there was someone? Not that there is someone."

"I already told you. You're different now than you were after Christmas. Christ, I don't think I've ever seen you that sad, not even when Alec dumped you two weeks after we left university."

"To be fair to me, I was getting ready to dump that absolute waste of space myself," she said, old bitterness still managing to seep into her voice. "He just got there first, was all."

"Anyway, if you've just got a friend, go on over to Danny. He's pining for you harder than a dead parrot pines for the fjords."

Clara could feel her nose scrunch up as she frowned. "That was literally the worst analogy you could possibly-"

"It sounded good in my head, all right?"

"Lizbeth Chen, your head is a mad place and I want nothing to do with it," she said. The label was completely peeled off her beer. "Come on, going to the ladies then we're done here."

"You're not grabbing Danny on the way out?" Lizzie asked innocently. She would not let this go.

"No, I'm not grabbing Danny on the way out." No matter how cutely nervous he looked, throwing glances at them when he thought they weren't looking. Through the daze of alcohol she sought a good excuse, and found one. "I don't dip my quill in the company ink, yeah?"

"Fine. Maybe I will."

Clara smiled slyly at her. "Go on, say hi then."

But Lizzie had been bluffing, with no real interest in handsome-and-nice-enough-sort-of Danny. "Whatever. Let's go."

*

Clara unlocked her flat, while Lizzie stood bundled up behind her on the landing waiting to go in for another drink and maybe to ask more questions before heading downstairs to her own place. As soon as she opened the door, she was greeted with a small stuffed animal seated on the entry table. 

"That's new," she said before she could stop herself.

Lizzie peered around her at it. Clara could feel the spirit of her frown more than see it. "Looks like something out of Lilo & Stitch. Except I don't remember anything like that in Lilo & Stitch."

Not meeting Lizzie's eyes, Clara went in and dropped her keys on the table before taking off her coat. "Uh...I think they made a sequel, didn't they? Might've been from that."

"Did they?"

"Sure." She picked it up--from the Doctor, with a little note written on parchment pinned to one of its limbs. Without realizing it, Clara started to smile as she read it, even though it was just a simple little thing telling her he was sorry he'd missed her, saw this and had thought of her, wanted her to have it, so on and so forth.

Lizzie noticed the smile even if Clara hadn't, and plucked the note out of her hands. "So is this from your 'just mates'?" She read the note over with an incredulous smirk. "He's got a key to your flat but he's 'just mates.' Clara."

"He travels," she huffed, "doesn't really have his own place."

"Except he must, right, because he only came round to drop this off," Lizzie said, waggling the note in front of Clara's face. She huffed some more and grabbed the note back, taking care not to rip it. "Come on. If you can't tell me--we've known each other since we were ten, you must tell me. Is something wrong with him or something? You ashamed of him?"

Clara gaped at her, a little bit offended. "We've known each other since we were ten, when was the last time I've been ashamed of anybody I know?"

Lizzie held her hands up in surrender and apology. "Sorry, forgot who I was talking to. So what is it? Also, what've you got to drink?"

"I," she began, still mentally huffing even if her voice was steady, "am done for the night, and am making tea." She began to let her hair down and kicked off her shoes.

"Good, I could use a cup. And you can tell me all about this friend of yours who has a key to your flat and brings you presents and writes adorable little notes and is really truly just a friend."

"Clara! Are you all right?"

Clara whipped around, her hair tangling in her hands as she abruptly stopped combing through it with her fingers. "Doctor? Yes? I'm--fine? Why are you yelling?"

He was standing in the doorway, eyes wide and hands braced on the frame as though he'd just run up and had to slam to a sudden stop. "Your door was open."

"Hi," Lizzie said, her eyes equally wide. "Sorry. Forgot to close it after me."

The Doctor stared at Lizzie. Lizzie stared back. Clara dropped her hands with a sigh and then began to put the kettle on. "Will you be staying?" she asked him.

"I was hoping you'd be coming," he said. 

"I bet," Lizzie murmured. 

Clara ignored her and frowned at him in confusion. "It's Friday. We don't usually do Fridays."

"Oh! Thought it was Wednesday."

"No, I think you were just here," Clara said, nodding at the stuffed animal. "Thanks for that, by the way."

The Doctor looked about as eager as this version of him ever looked--which was not that eager at all, but it was just enough for her alone to notice. "You like it?" She smiled a genuine smile and that was enough to get him to puff his chest out, which only made her smile more. "Right. I'm off, see you on proper Wednesday." Like that, he was gone, closing the door gently behind him.

Lizzie stared at her with an assortment of emotions, none of them particularly positive. "Older and Scottish and more than a bit daft?" She paused and her face softened. In a not unkind voice, she said, "You sure you're not a little ashamed?"

Her smile dropped just like that. "I'm not," Clara said quickly, and that was truth. The water was heating up and she turned around to face Lizzie, her arms crossed over her chest. "And he's not daft, he's just different. He really is nice, and we really are friends. It's just--he's a little difficult to explain. Right? I just need to find the right way to introduce him to people and that wasn't quite it."

"Thought it was kind of sweet, him running up here like he thought you were in trouble," she said. "Still. You sure he thinks you're just friends? With the gifts, I mean."

Clara thought about the best way to answer that in a way that wasn't so vague as to arouse more suspicion but wasn't so detailed that it would sound like a complete lie. "We had a row just after Christmas," she said slowly, keeping her eyes to the ground, "and he thinks he still has to make up for it."

"Hmm." 

"What's that mean."

"Nothing."

The tea kettle, with absolute perfect timing, began to whistle.

*

The next Wednesday, before Clara could escape, she found Danny at her classroom door. He was fidgeting, as though he had something inside of him trying to escape, except in a particularly dashing way. Clara wondered how soon she could tell him, no, got a date tonight, can't. 

Fortunately for her, Lizzie must have seen him standing in Clara's classroom, because she veered in out of the hallway and linked her arm with his, saying, "Danny! What brings you out of the east wing today?"

"Oh, I um-" He glanced at Clara and then glanced back at Lizzie with what really was a brilliant smile. "I'd just come round to see if Clara had any plans-"

"Ah, she's got her man round tonight, doesn't she? Wednesdays and all." Lizzie grinned at her. Clara found herself in the awkward position of being annoyed at the continued teasing--really, the Doctor was just a friend--and eternally grateful that her other friend was willing to throw herself on the rudeness grenade for her by giving Danny the biggest hint possible about her plans not including him. His face fell, however, and she did feel bad for a moment until Lizzie said to him, "But I'm free. What were you thinking of doing?"

Clara made a mental note to thank Lizzie later for playing the role of wingman so wonderfully. She had always been the sort of person who could make a night out of anything and make anyone feel like they were having the best time of their lives. She swooped Danny away, chatting with him like nothing, and Clara breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, the next day--well, the next day on Earth, at any rate--Lizzie once more accosted her in the break room. "So. How was last night?"

"Could ask you the same," Clara said, popping open her lunch and digging into the salad. "How was Danny?"

"Oh, that was fine. Dinner, couple of drinks, he's got a cracking sense of humor. How was your man, who, by the way, is at this time nameless?"

"John," she said quickly. That had always been his go-to alias, so it fell out of her mouth easily. She couldn't so quickly explain the three days they'd spent fending off an alien invasion during the Mesozoic era, so she simply said, "It was nice. Saw a film."

"What was it?"

"Some...foreign thing," she said with a shrug. "I don't know."

Lizzie leaned forward across the table and grinned. "Did he bring you any more presents?"

"Why would he bring me more presents? Anyway, you only saw the one."

"Yeah, but I surmised there were more. What's the best one he's brought?"

"I am trying to eat here," Clara said. 

With a sigh, Lizzie leaned back. "Fine. Be that way. I'll just stalk you until I get the answers I want."

Clara might have thrown a piece of lettuce at her. 

*

The rest of the week went without much commotion, until Friday night. Another night out, this time with Danny as well--getting along wonderfully with Lizzie, it seemed, though Clara grudgingly admitted she wasn't entirely relieved that his attention had been diverted from her--and another night ended with them going up to her flat for tea. Why they never seemed to end up at Lizzie's she had no idea. 

As soon as she opened her door, she could sense something was off. No little gift, not even a note on the entry table. She dropped her keys and without taking off her coat or shoes, walked slowly towards the living room. Behind her, she could feel Danny tensing up in some kind of defensive pose. She had no idea whether he'd know what to do if something was wrong.

Heavy leather boots. Then a dark blue coat with red lining, dropped unceremoniously on the ground. A cardigan. All items led back to her bedroom. The pit of Clara's stomach went cold. "Everything all right?" Lizzie asked quietly, worry creeping into her own voice. 

"Don't know yet," Clara responded, her voice just as quiet. She pushed the door to her room open slowly, peering into the dark. She could just make out a form on the chair next to her bed, the safety lights from outside gleaming against the Doctor's white shirt and silver hair. He was curled up, one leg sort of under his body and leaned up against the arm of the chair while the other stretched out in front of him to the floor, back and neck curved into a "c" with one arm pillowing his head and the other bent and clutching something to his chest. It didn't look comfortable in the least, but somehow he was asleep. Clara held a hand up behind her to stop her friends from coming further. "Hang on a sec."

She walked further into the room and gently pried the thing--a note--out of the Doctor's hand. In the darkness of her room she couldn't read it, but by the hall light she could see it said: "Had a bit of a day. TARDIS too smoky, both of us need rest. Hope ok. Know it's Friday very sorry."

"What is it?" Lizzie said, concern etched on her brow. "Your old man in there?"

Clara held up the note. "Yeah, he's just resting. Long day apparently."

"Is he all right? What's he do?" Danny asked.

"He's a doctor," Lizzie supplied, before Clara could open her mouth. She turned back to Clara with a questioning frown. "Right? That's what you called him last week."

"Right," Clara said, releasing a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Yes. Just a rough day, sounds like. Forgot to leave the note out front, he was so tired."

Danny grimaced sympathetically. "Maybe we should be off then?"

Lizzie nodded. "See you Monday, Ozzy."

Clara leaned in to hug them and they saw themselves out. Then she turned back to the man sleeping in what looked like the least comfortable position in the universe. Rousing him proved easy, with a soft shake of his shoulder and a quiet, "Come on, you. Get into bed."

He woke blearily at first, and then startled after a moment. "Clara?" he whispered groggily. His eyes glinted brightly in the low light. "Did you have company?"

"No," she lied. She pulled back the quilt and half led, half shoved him under the covers. "Go back to sleep."

"This is your bed," he said dumbly. It seemed as though drowsiness affected time lords the same way it affected humans. 

"I've got a couch," she said. "You look like you need a real bed."

"I can take the-" But he was asleep before he could finish, passing out the moment his head hit the pillow.

Clara smiled ruefully at him and brushed back his curls. "You'll take it next time," she murmured. 

*

"Are you sure you're just mates?" First thing Monday morning, falling in step with Clara as she walked up to the school, there was already a wheedling note to Lizzie's voice. 

"I am, for the ten millionth time, absolutely certain of that," Clara said. Each word was enunciated perfectly.

"It's just, I'd called him your old man, you didn't say anything."

Clara glared at her without looking directly at her. "He's old, and a man. In case you haven't noticed."

"Right, but the look on your face when you saw he was asleep."

"I was relieved he was all right."

"Didn't think you looked relieved. Looked like you thought he was a bit cute."

Her ears went hot and she whipped around to face Lizzie with wide eyes. "I did not."

A wicked grin broke across Lizzie's face. "No, you didn't. But why are you so worried that you might've?"

"You're evil," Clara sputtered.

"And you look like a tomato. Invite him out with us Wednesday."

Clara averted her eyes and yanked the door open. "I don't know if he'll like it."

*

He liked it. Especially after he was introduced to darts and proceeded to crush every record that had ever been held in the pub's history. He liked it very much.

*

They made their goodbyes at Lizzie's door--she was two flights below Clara, so it made sense--and the Doctor bowed with his hands clasped behind his back and said, "It was lovely to meet you properly Miss Chen." He turned to Danny and said, "You as well, Mister Pink."

Danny blinked. Lizzie and Clara exchanged glances, and Danny blinked again. "That's not--that's not. My name's not Pink."

The Doctor frowned uncertainly, which in this light looked more like a glare. "Danny...Salmon?"

"No. I'm not a fish. It's Trevor. Danny Trevor."

The concept of colors seemed confusing for this Doctor, Clara thought. "It's the shirt," she said to nobody in particular. "It's a pink shirt. Or a salmon one, maybe."

They all looked at it. With a laugh, Lizzie clapped the Doctor on the arm and said, "Didn't think you'd had that much to drink."

"He didn't," Danny protested. "God, I hope he didn't. He would've taken someone's eyes out with those darts if he had. Anyway man, it's Trevor, not Pink."

The uncertain frown turned into an actual glare and Clara had to hide her smile behind her hand. "No," said the Doctor, with the exact same low, serious voice he'd used a week ago on a Sontaran brigade. "It's Pink."

"Right, Danny Pink," Lizzie said with her own smile threatening to spill into another laugh. "Come on. I want to show you my etchings."

"I didn't know you had any etchings," Danny said dumbly as the door shut behind them.

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets, creating the perfect nook for Clara to loop her own hand through as they took the stairs up to her flat. "I like your friends," he said. "They're good friends."

"Yeah," Clara said. She smiled and shook her head. "They think we're dating."

In the dark stairwell, the Doctor half-missed a step and stumbled just the tiniest bit. "Why?"

"Hey, you don't have to sound so disgusted," she teased.

"I'm not," he said quickly. A touch too quickly, she thought, and then he added, "I'm just a little confused."

She patted his arm as they continued up. "The things you drop off. Plus they were here when you sort of fell asleep in my bedroom. So now they think we're a couple."

"That's. That's a very silly notion." 

She smirked at what she thought was a disapproving note in his low, gruff voice. "What's wrong with silly?"

He took a very long moment to answer, as though he were hesitating or taken by surprise. "Nothing. I'm still talking to you, aren't I?" Then he stopped; in the half-light of the stairwell, she could see his brows furrowing deeply. "The night I fell asleep. I thought you said you didn't have any company that night."

"It's not a big deal. I'd never seen you that tired, it was more important you got some sleep--for what it's worth, they agreed," she said. "I think they think you work in an emergency room."

He shrugged. "It's a fitting enough lie, I suppose."

"I thought so." 

He hesitated again, this time slowing down their pace up the stairs. "Should I stop? Bringing things, coming up without calling first. Is it a problem?"

For a moment, she couldn't even comprehend the question. Then a laugh escaped her, short and incredulous and perhaps a little bit nervous at the thought of the Doctor not dropping in like he did. "No. I like it and if they want to be silly, then it's like you said, nothing wrong with silly." She fished her key out of her clutch. "Suppose this is goodbye until next time," she said. She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed his cheek as he leaned down to meet her, and smiled when a contented hum escaped him.

"Yes." He waited dutifully while she unlocked the door and stepped safely inside. His head quirked to the side and he frowned. Curiously, innocently, far too straightforwardly for him to be anything but naive to what he was asking, he asked, "Do you have any etchings?"

Clara's eyes went wide, her cheeks flushed hot, and she bit her bottom lip hard to keep from laughing.

"I mean like how Lizzie has."

As soon as she could trust herself to get the words out, she said, "Lizzie doesn't have any etchings, Doctor."

"Oh?"

"She's not going to be showing Danny any etchings."

"Oh."

"It's sort of a euphemism. She'll be showing him...other things."

"Oh. … Oh! Oh. Oh. Oh. Goodbye. Oh."

And then he was gone, running down the stairs with his coat flashing slivers of red behind him. No use calling the dear fool back at that point. She shut the door and leaned back against it, finally letting out one breath of the laugh that she'd been holding in for too long. 

*

Everything was perfectly fine until the attack.

Really, everything was perfectly fine after that as well, it was all just more complicated.

*

"Your boyfriend-"

"Still not my boyfriend."

"Your just-mates-could-be-boyfriend-"

"Friend is fine."

"Your friend who wants to kiss you on your naughty bits-"

"Lizzie."

"Stopped a bloody alien invasion? Did I see that right? With a big blue wooden box?"

Clara scowled at her. "I helped."

"She did more than help." The Doctor was striding towards them, dust coating his clothes but no worse for wear. "She was absolutely key. As were you, Miss Chen. And you, Mister--where's Mister Pink?"

"Eh. Here." Danny had long since given up trying to correct him. And at any rate, he was surrounded by rubble and blown-to-smithereens alien tech. He wasn't really thinking that much about the Doctor misnaming him yet again. He raised his hand and waved. 

The Doctor gave him a manly nod. "Yes. Good job, Mister Pink. Please do not fall over." Danny nodded back and proceeded to sit down carefully.

Lizzie dragged Clara away from the Doctor as he surveyed the destruction around them. "He's an alien," she whispered. "Do you even know anything about him?"

Clara stared at her like Bambi at an oncoming train. "I jumped into his time stream and split myself into an infinite number of echoes and have met him and possibly saved him at almost every point in his life over hundreds and hundreds of years and I remember a lot of it, don't tell him he thinks I've forgotten," she whispered back quickly. "But yeah. I know a bit. It's better than internet stalking, really."

Lizzie took on that same Bambi-esque look. "Oh. Well. In that case."

"Also he changes faces and personality sometimes. That's why I was sad after Christmas. He changed and I really missed the old him. I still do."

"Aww," Lizzie said with a sad little frown. "Did he used to be handsome?"

"He's still handsome!" Clara snapped.

Lizzie grinned a feral grin and made some weird, inhuman noise of deep reptilian-brain enjoyment.

"Can you stop? We've nearly been massacred by aliens, can you stop for once-"

"Stop what?" The Doctor was walking over, concern in his eyes. "Is everything all right?"

"It's fine," Clara said. She ignored Lizzie's wild-eyed grin. "How's Danny?"

"He'll be all right," he said. "Very nice young man." He turned awkwardly to Lizzie and smiled tightly. "Congratulations."

Her grin turned confused and she said, "Thanks. I think." She nudged Clara and said, "I better get over there, see if he needs a juice box or something."

When she was off, the Doctor took a step towards Clara. "And do you need anything?"

She brushed dusty hair away from her face. "A nap," she said with a pouty grimace. "And a shower first."

He ducked his head, a smile alighting the corners of his mouth before disappearing. "The TARDIS is just around the corner. I believe you do have a wardrobe on board, as well as a bed."

"You have better things to do than to wait for me to finish showering," she said with a wry grin.

"I'm a time lord, Clara. I promise you I can wait for as long as you'd like."

"What if I took so long I used up all the hot water on the TARDIS?"

"It--I would--no, don't do that," he said with a frown. "I don't like cold showers."

"When do you even take cold showers?"

"When-" He looked a little odd, like he'd swallowed a bug, then flung his arm in the general direction of the TARDIS. "It's just around there."

"Did somebody say shower?" Danny waved at them. Something dead and alien had exploded on him. It was disgusting. "Could use one."

Even the Doctor was grimacing at him. "Round the corner. Just follow Clara, there are plenty."

Lizzie looked like she thought she might have been the only one not completely off her rocker. "Plenty? Not in your little blue box." But she followed the others just to make sure.

*

"Flip this. Flipping flip this. Flip me and flip this whole flipping flip. Flip this whole flipping flip of a flip--why do I keep saying flip?"

The Doctor regarded her patiently. "Swearing filter. She doesn't like curse words."

Lizzie blank stared at him. "She."

"The TARDIS. Time and-"

"Relative dimensions in space," Clara finished with a smile as she skipped into the console room. Danny was not too far behind, straightening his freshly cleaned shirt--Clara had tried not to look at him a minute prior, but really, how could you not, and so for propriety's sake she'd pulled ahead of him. "Basically a time machine."

The Doctor's scoff at her boiling down his beloved ship to "basically" anything went ignored, as Lizzie turned her blank stare to her old friend. "Is not."

"Is too," the Doctor snapped.

Lizzie glared at him. "Is not!"

He glared right back at her but she was used to dealing with petulant twelve year olds and it failed. With a huff, he crossed his arms and mumbled, "Clara, help."

Lizzie's face went wide-eyed as she turned back to Clara. "Is it?"

"Darling, it's smaller on the outside, it's got a whole bank of showers that never run out of hot water--which, by the way Doctor, why do you take cold showers when that's the case--and it's got the fastest laundry in the universe." Clara smiled a smile that scrunched up her nose; it was the sort of smile that you'd give a child who'd just learned the harrowing fact that grown-ups get toothpaste samples instead of stickers when they visit the dentist. "Is the time machine bit really that hard to believe?"

Lizzie continued to stare unblinkingly at her. "Oh my god."

Clara broke into a grin. "Yeah."

"No, but you don't know what this means--Danny-"

He was smiling brightly at her. "You can source your etchings!"

The grin on Clara's face fell and the Doctor frowned. "Sorry," Clara said, "her what?"

"These brilliant nineteenth century etchings she's got," Danny continued, moving to stand beside Lizzie. "They have sort of a name that we can't quite make out, and we know they're German, but--Clara, what is that look?"

The Doctor shuffled his feet and turned to her, confused. "I thought you said it was a euphemism." 

It clicked for Lizzie before it clicked for Danny, but only just. "Clara. Oh my god. Did you think we--and then you talked about it with your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend! For the last time!"

The air felt like how a sad trombone sounds. The TARDIS itself seemed to be avoiding everyone's eyes. Finally the Doctor cleared his throat. "There is a planet. Where everything is shrimp. Shall we go."

*

They went, they stared at shrimp for a bit, and Danny said, "So we're clear, nobody here is currently having relations with anybody else here, right?" There were murmurs of assent all around.

Not that Danny had missed either the way the Doctor had flinched at the last thing Clara had said before they'd taken off into time and space, or the way the lady had protested slightly too much in saying said thing, which was exactly why he'd said "currently."

*

At some point, Clara probably should have realized it was a bad idea inviting a history teacher on board the TARDIS, especially one with an obsession with revolutions--"Could we really see any revolution in earth's history?" Lizzie had said with such excitement, and the Doctor, equally excited, had informed her that they could see almost any revolution in the history of the universe--but she didn't. Not until it was far too late.

Right at the start of summer break, there was a gleam in Lizzie's eyes that really shouldn't have been there. The Doctor had managed to land them exactly at the start of Saurus IV's first major upheaval, right after the assassination of the Prime Council's de facto leader. And Lizzie, well. Lizzie had taken her camera and notebook and then, out of all possible dubious decisions, she'd chosen to tuck them away in favor of a rebellion photon pistol. 

"This is mad," Clara had told her. "You can't do this."

"How can I not?" she'd said. "I teach history, Clara. I'm a student of it. I know exactly what historians look for in first-hand accounts. I have the ability to not only be part of history here, but to record it as well. How can I not do this? Sometimes you just have to grab at that thing you want and hope."

And that was how she found herself screaming at the Doctor, begging to know why he'd let Lizzie leave like that. "She's her own woman," he said, his own voice starting to rise. "Who am I to stop her?"

She glared at him, with a weight that Danny could see, as he awkwardly lurked in the shadows of the console room's balcony, but that he didn't understand. "You've made decisions on the behalf of grown women before," she said coldly.

At least the Doctor had the good grace to duck his head and look away. Still, his jaw clenched as he stalked around the control panels, flipping switches and yanking levers with probably more force than was necessary. "That's different."

"How? How is it different?"

"Because I know she'll be fine," he spat out, every word landing like a quick jab. The light from the central tower reflected harshly on his deeply lined face. "Lizzie Chen becomes one of the greatest poetic historians in Saurus IV's history--some argue she's the greatest. She lives a long, happy life, she creates an academic institution that is known throughout multiple galaxies. Her life is better, safer, on that planet than it is traveling with me."

Clara was seething, glaring at him with hurt and angry eyes. "You still gave her the choice."

"Are you sure?"

Danny finally spoke up, incredulous. "Are you saying you wouldn't have let her back on the TARDIS?"

"Of course I would have," the Doctor said. "But she'd never have asked to come back on board. How is it a choice when there's only one tenable option?"

It was only when they'd landed back home that she quietly said, "If there's anything I thought I'd taught you, it's that there's always a choice, Doctor."

*

"What did he do?" Danny asked. The day was bright, sunny, warm, and they were sitting outside a cafe with overly sweet cold drinks on their table. 

"He sent me away," she said. "Once, when things were going very badly."

Danny gave an understanding nod, but she quickly found that it wasn't understanding towards her. "So he was protecting you." 

Her glare came full force, and it really was stronger and tougher than most people expected out of her. Danny flinched back in shock. "I protect him," she said. "I saved him. In the end, after he couldn't send me away again, that's what happened. The only reason he's alive right now is because I came back to him."

Danny still didn't quite understand, but he believed her. 

She went on a proper, normal vacation for weeks. She went to the beach. She thought about doing a backpacking trip--except she and Lizzie used to do that and the memories were still painful, even knowing how Lizzie would get her happy ending. She went to Spain instead and spent a lot of time sitting in a garden not far from the water, reading paperback romance novels. 

When she got back home, she found a note on parchment that read, in curiously shaky cursive, "Please--could you choose forgiveness?"

She folded the note and pressed it into the box where she kept her others. Perhaps the Doctor had been right; it wasn't much of a choice when there was only ever one option.

*

She asked Danny if he would come with them again; she knew he'd get a kick out of the more dangerous adventures they had, but mostly she just wanted someone human on board with her. Sometimes the Doctor could forget that he wasn't actually a god and being outnumbered helped to remind him. And if she wanted him on board for other reasons--if, say, the hug she'd gotten when she'd come home from Spain had lingered and she'd found she hadn't minded--she didn't admit it.

The Doctor was excited the first time she saw him after their break--scurrying nervously around the console, telling them he'd take them to see Lizzie after the war, after she starts to become what she will become. And so that's where they went: two school teachers meeting another school teacher, in a different time, a different part of the galaxy, Clara and Danny catching her up on their break and Lizzie catching them up on a revolution. 

When Lizzie asked what the Doctor--away in his TARDIS, tinkering and giving them time alone--had been doing, Clara said, "You know, I'm not sure. I always assume he either just zips ahead to the next week or spends years away when he leaves."

Lizzie nodded in agreement, but Danny was looking at her oddly. "He stayed," he said, a weird tone to his voice. Off their shocked looks, he leaned in conspiratorially and said, "Yeah. So apparently he fancies himself some kind of bodyguard or something for Clara."

"Our Clara?" Lizzie said disbelievingly. "Who could stop a rampaging rhino with the flick of her hair?"

"Thank you, could you tell the Doctor that? Swear sometimes he forgets who keeps saving whom," Clara muttered.

"Right, and so they had a bit of a row after you left," Danny said. 

"What about?" Lizzie asked. 

Clara shook her head and grimaced. "I don't even want to talk about it."

"Doesn't really matter anyway," Danny said (though Clara was sure he'd just fill Lizzie in on the details later, which was fine by her). "It's just that after--when you were on holiday, he came by, I told him you were away and I think he got a little stubborn. I think he was trying to wait you out."

"Wait me out?"

"Yeah. Like he thought you'd hurry back and come running into his arms. Except it didn't work out like that, did it? Poor bloke just ended up working himself into a panic, thinking you'd gone for good."

Lizzie grinned at Clara's speechlessness. "Just friends," she mocked.

"How long's it been since we left you here?" Clara asked.

"About five years."

"And you've literally been waiting all that time just to say that, haven't you?"

"Might have been."

Danny nudged Clara's arm. "You know he's just avoiding more panic, tinkering in that ship of his."

Clara rolled her eyes; she didn't want to believe he'd been worried she'd leave him, and she didn't want to believe that he was still worried now, so instead she pretended that she in fact thought he was not worried at all and also that he was just being grumpy and standoffish because that was his personality. Right. "How do you know he just doesn't like to tinker? He loves tinkering on that old thing. He always has."

"Because that's what men do," Danny said. "We avoid feelings by working on our machines."

Lizzie's eyebrows shot up as she thought of something else. "And anyway, Miss Jumped-into-his-time-stream-and-knows-everything-about-him, how long's he been running away? Doesn't matter from what, just how long's he been running?"

For all she tried to hide this fact, Clara could not recall any point where he'd ever been standing still.


	2. Chapter 2

"I kept visiting him, you know," Danny said. It was raining outside, not too hard, but it was a chilly rain and constant and the sort that you knew would last all day, all weekend, and ruin all your plans. Danny had decided to move into Lizzie's old place, to make it easier on the Doctor when they decided to go off somewhere or when he decided to visit, and he'd come up the stairs for tea and a chat. "When you were in Spain."

"The way you say that makes it sound like I was on another planet," she said. 

"You might as well have been," he said with a shrug. "Or, you might have been somewhere we couldn't get to with a space ship. Or something. Anyway, I kept visiting him like some sad neighbor or whatever." Danny's face took on an expression that Clara couldn't quite read; there was sadness, a sort of sympathy, but there was something else beneath it that she didn't get.

"I don't understand why he didn't just travel forward through time until I got back." The invasion outside seemed to be dampened both literally and figuratively by the rain, and she poured some tea into a couple of cups. "I mean, honestly, all you had to do was tell him I'd be gone for a month-"

"I did," he protested. "He wanted to wait you out. I told you."

Her nose scrunched up when she frowned. "And it really backfired?"

"He was moping. Felt like I was walking into some Gothic romance novel that final week. You really should ask him why he did it some day." He padded over to the window and sighed. "Is he really doing all this with that little torch?"

She nodded. "It's a sonic screwdriver. And yeah. It's his thing." Outside, the Doctor was running across the grass, as alien drones dropped around him with the point of his screwdriver and some fiddles on the thing-a-ma-jig he'd whipped up earlier that day. 

A frown furrowed Danny's brow. "Why's he running like that?"

She walked over to the window with her cup. "Like what?"

"Like. You know. That."

In spite of everything, she found herself feeling defensive on the Doctor's behalf. He was running in circles around the TARDIS now, being chased by an errant drone that refused to die. "That's just his run. Leave him alone."

Danny sighed and said, "That's it, then. Our planet and possibly our entire universe is being saved by a fellow who runs like a penguin vainly attempting to take flight."

"Don't see you out there doing anything, Superman," she sniped.

"Yeah, and what about you? Sitting in here, drinking tea."

She pulled a face like she sort of couldn't be bothered but also couldn't be bothered expressing how much she couldn't be bothered. "Eh. It's raining, isn't it. And he told us to stay away."

"I don't think he expected us to listen to him."

Clara was about to respond when the Doctor finished off the last drone. "Oh, he's done it, look!" But she frowned when he sat on the grass and then fell back slowly. He didn't look like he was injured, he was just...lying there. Panting for breath. Staring in their direction.

"You think he's okay?" Danny peered through the drizzle and tried to make out what the Doctor was doing. "Thought he was waving, but he's arm's just up. Just straight up. Why's he glaring at us with his arm straight up?"

"TARDIS swearing filter." She sighed wearily. "It works on hand gestures too. Come on, let's go get him. Thank you, by the way."

"For what?"

She grabbed her raincoat from the hook by the door. "Taking care of him."

Danny shrugged self-consciously. "It was nothing. I liked it. He's nice once you get past the permanent scowl. And I mean all I did was bring him something to eat now and then. Hung out a bit maybe."

"Yeah, but." Her thumb ran across the doorknob absently, her other hand clenching a little too tightly around her raincoat. Danny wasn't meeting her eyes; a touch of a smile tugged the corners of his mouth up but it was a bashful smile, one that might not have known exactly how much the Doctor shouldn't be alone, but one that knew that Clara wouldn't have wanted him to be alone and that had been reason enough to learn to get past the scowl. "It means a lot."

*

Danny was at a professional conference—one of the ones she'd chosen to avoid, though they both taught the same subject--and Clara, inadvertently, had the Doctor all to herself the next Wednesday. "Should we talk?" she asked. 

"About what?" He seemed genuinely confused, calmly navigating the TARDIS to some surprise destination. "I promise, you didn't need to pack. Everything you'll need is already-"

"No, I mean--Danny told me you waited. When I was away."

"Oh." He jabbed at something on the console in front of him. "Didn't have anything better to do."

"He told me that-"

"Clara, he's a very nice boy but he's not as perceptive as he thinks," the Doctor snarled, which told Clara that Danny had been just as perceptive as the Doctor had wished he wouldn't have been. 

She decided to drop the subject, because there were other things to talk about. "Fine. Then tell me why you think I need taking care of." His head snapped up, but he said nothing. His face was unreadable and he was so still that Clara wasn't sure he was breathing. "That's what it is, right? You keep doing these things to protect me?"

"That's not--I can't help it. You don't understand."

She crossed her arms and stared defiantly. "Then make me understand."

The Doctor looked like he was searching for something; words or an escape, she wasn't sure which. Then he took a hesitant step towards her, and then another, until he was standing directly in front of her still grasping for something to say or do. 

When he took her hands in his, she was surprised. This one wasn't demonstrative. He wasn't touchy-feely, and he still sometimes didn't know what to do with himself when she hugged him. But he took her hands and slowly, nervously, unfurled her fingers and pressed her palms to his chest. "Do you feel that?" he asked quietly, his voice hoarse and low and barely audible; in the shadows beneath his brows, she could see his eyes nervously glancing around, refusing to meet her own. "Do you feel my hearts?"

Surprised as she was by his actions, it took her a moment to find her own voice. "Yes. Of course."

"They are owed to you." He was speaking slowly, as though he could barely get the thoughts from his mind to his lips, the words themselves moving like they were drowning. "They, the blood inside them, and the cage around them, the flesh above them and the skin that holds it all together--the breath with which I am telling you this--" He stopped, that breath still even as his mouth moved around words that refused to form. "I am wholly in your debt, and I would be remiss if I repaid that debt by being cavalier with your life."

He was warm beneath her touch, warm where he held her, warm and alive. But she steeled herself anyway, flicked his hands off hers, and wrapped her fingers around the cloth of his shirt. "If you owe me anything," she began, "then it's the right to be as cavalier as I want to be with my own life. No more of this."

When he swallowed thickly, the muscles in his neck moving with the action, she ignored the flickering spark that it set off inside of her. "I'll try," he said. "I can't promise that I always will."

Her hands flattened against him again, smoothing down his shirt and feeling his chest swell with his breathing. "Do you promise to try?"

"I do."

"That's a start," she murmured. She leaned up, stood on the tips of her toes--usually, the Doctor would lean down a little for her, but now he stood frozen as she braced against him and reached to kiss his cheek. A frown on her face, she dropped back down and looked up at him. "Doctor? You all right?"

For a moment he didn't say anything. "We're going to a beach," he blurted out. "Was thinking I probably burn easily."

She smiled up at his dumb, sweet face and laughed gently, her fingers absently tracing patterns on his stomach. "Then we don't need to go to the beach. Maybe in the winter. Let's go somewhere else--a museum? Or maybe go see things in the museum before they're museum-age?"

He looked almost relieved at the thought, his shoulders slumping slightly as tension left him. Then his face brightened with an idea. "Shall we retrieve our Mister Pink first?"

She grinned conspiratorially up at him. "Got any writers in mind?"

*

"I can't believe we met-"

The Doctor smiled a tight, but warm smile. "I know."

"I can't believe it, you took me-" Danny was downright bubbly, bouncing on his toes as they walked down the street, a skip in his step as he turned suddenly to walk backwards, facing them. "We went and saw--and then the original manuscript-"

"It never gets old," Clara said. She looped one hand through the crook of the Doctor's arm then tugged Danny back to her side and looped the other hand through the crook of his arm. "You'll never get tired of this, I promise."

"I believe you," he said with a gushing breath. Danny was positively glowing. "I could kiss you. I could kiss both of you."

Clara pulled to a stop just outside a sandwich shop. "Bite to eat first, maybe?"

"Agreed," Danny said. It was a sunny day, there were tables set up outside, and he told them, "Grab us a seat--I'll get us all something, it's on me."

"Something with turkey," Clara said as she took the first free table she could find.

"Doc, the regular?" Danny asked. The Doctor nodded and sat down, rolling up his shirtsleeves. 

Once Danny was inside, Clara looked at the Doctor curiously. "You have a regular?"

He was fiddling with his hands, looking down at them before one went up, seemingly unbidden, to wipe his face. It stayed there as he bit his thumbnail before dropping back to his lap. "Ah. Yes. While you were away, we held some experiments. With sandwiches. To, ah, see which I'd like most."

“Sandwich experiments.” A laugh threatened to emerge from her. "And he calls you 'Doc?'"

Still not meeting her eyes, he said, "Well, I call him 'Pink.' And he—helped. When you were gone. So I will allow 'Doc.'"

A grin curled wide across her face. "You two bonded without me around."

His eyes finally snapped up to meet hers, and there was a distinct playfulness to them. "Jealous?"

She laughed and shook her head, remembering that first night they'd all met, not long ago, when they'd all gone to the pub together and he'd commented that Danny seemed nice. Her own coy silly joke, thrown back at her; he looked happy, albeit a little out of place and maybe a little awkward squinting in the bright sunlight. She reached over and put her hand on his, gripping a little tighter as he flinched in surprise. "I can't be jealous. Not after seeing how happy you've made him."

A muscle jumped in the Doctor's jaw as he looked down to where their hands lay together. "He is rather bubbly, isn't he? I'm--glad that he makes you-"

"Oh, so am I the third wheel now?" Danny came back with three sandwiches and drinks, and plopped down in the seat between them.

"Never, Danny," Clara said, giving his hand a brief squeeze as well. "No such thing as a third wheel when you're having lunch with two men as handsome as you."

"Listen to that," Danny said with a grin. He unwrapped his sandwich and nudged the Doctor with his elbow. "We're handsome. You like being called handsome, handsome?"

The Doctor had, at some point, started scowling slightly; Clara couldn't help but smile at his transparent self-consciousness. "No reason to tease, Mister Pink."

"Nobody's teasing," he protested in a tired sort of voice. "And I'm not even wearing pink today. I haven't worn pink since that one night."

"Too bad," the Doctor said gruffly, reaching for his sandwich. "You'll be Danny Pink forever. Across the universe. Name written in the stars."

Danny, who'd already torn into his own sandwich, stopped chewing and regarded him thoughtfully. "Promise?"

If Clara noticed the sparkle in Danny's eyes or the way the Doctor's lips twitched up for the briefest moment--but she did, didn't she. She just chose not to say anything about it.

*

At some point, Danny's "handsome in a vaguely Canadian-Hollywood way" features had turned into "proper handsome," possibly due to repeatedly being in life-threatening, life-changing, or otherwise life-living events together and seeing each other in the rawest situations imaginable.

So of course when she was showing Danny how to fly the TARDIS, her hands brushed against his in the same way the Doctor's hands brushed against hers when he showed her something new. And of course if she laughed at a joke he told, or if he laughed at one of hers, they knocked against each other, arms barely touching, just like she would press against the Doctor when he said something (wittingly or unwittingly) silly, just like Danny would trace his fingers against the Doctor's back for the same reason. 

It was all very, very easy. But there was something uneasy beneath the surface, a tightly coiling spring waiting either to break free or just to break. 

*

She kissed Danny first. 

There had been a Saturday lunch--a disastrous one, with her dad and with Linda, asking after her life and tutting when Clara had nothing to report due to having everything in the universe to hide. Her dad saying, "She just worries you're lonely," and her feeling like a small child again, her hair hiding her face and her arms curled protectively around her. Danny had come by later, "just popped upstairs to say hello and would you like to grab a drink and oh you're cleaning and you're crying-"

So he'd put the kettle on. And he'd completely distracted her, to the point where the disastrous lunch felt like it had happened years ago and why should she even still be thinking about it. And when he'd decided to go back downstairs, she reached up to hug him and kissed him on the cheek. 

But he was sweet, and handsome, and she knew him so much better now, so when she saw a flicker of wanting-something-more in his eyes she knew that it was reflected in her own and she kissed him again. His mouth was as soft as she'd imagined it would be, and smiled against hers when she pulled millimeters away. 

"Oh. I'm sorry--I should have knocked-"

Of course, that's how it would happen. She kissed Danny, and apparently the Doctor had also decided to just pop upstairs to say hello, because he was frozen in the doorway with her key in his hand and those big, sad eyes of his had never looked bigger or sadder. Try as he might--and he was trying so desperately hard--he couldn't hide it. 

Thing is, she wasn't sure which one of them he was sad about. 

*

Between Wednesdays, they drove out to the country with a picnic basket and a blanket. It was a beautiful summer day, with wine and good food and now they watched the stars above them. "Which ones have we been to?" Danny asked, laying on his back and picking out constellations with his arm tucked under his head. 

"That one, I think," she said, pointing up to a star in Gemini. "And...I don't know which others. We could call and ask."

"Probably be a little awkward," he said. 

She sighed and curled up closer to Danny. "Yeah. Probably." It's not as though the Doctor had been mean to them--in fact, it was just the opposite. He'd been too nice. Too cheerful. Careful not to be too gruff, too foul, too anything. 

Clara felt awful about it, and ran a hand down her face. 

"Do you think--maybe--should I stop coming along?" Danny asked. His arm wrapped around her. "It's just, when Lizzie left, I thought I'd be, you know, the spare. And now I think maybe he thinks he's the spare?"

She leaned up on her elbow and looked down at him. "He likes having you on board. He likes you. I think he'd be worse off if you left."

"D'you think?"

"I know.” She'd seen the way the Doctor glanced at Danny when he thought neither of them were looking. She might not have known exactly what had happened in those weeks when she'd been gone—outside of some experiments with sandwiches—but she knew the looks that the Doctor gave Danny sometimes meant something. “I know him."

"Yeah," he said with a sigh. "Jumping into someone's time stream would acquaint you with them pretty well, I suppose."

Clara gave his shoulder a soft shove. "Even without that. I just know him. He'd miss having you around, and so would I."

"Maybe, but. I don't know. Sometimes I think about what the two of you've got--I mean, it's so intimate, yeah?" He propped himself up to face her. "The whole time stream thing. It's like you're in him. It's not exactly you, but it's...you-ish. And I know he fancies you, I've seen the way he looks at you, but it's more than that."

She closed her eyes and fell back, her hands scrubbing at her face. "He said he owes me. He doesn't, but he thinks he does."

"He does, though. You saved his life. Again, and again, and-"

With a sharp glare, she shook her head. "Not me, me-ish." Her glare turned into a pout. "Okay. Sometimes me. But he doesn't owe me a thing."

Danny reached for a blade of grass behind her head, and started to peel it into tiny strands. "You can't help feeling beholden to someone."

"Look at us." She let her arms fall to the ground. "This is supposed to be our date, yet we're talking about the Doctor."

"You don't worry about him?" He reached for another blade of grass. 

"I do." Her shoulders slid up against the blanket in a shrug, and she said, "I worry he's lonely. I know he has us, but when he's out without us he spends so much time looking for his home, and he hasn't found it--I worry he feels alone."

"The thing is-" He chewed his bottom lip, peeled another blade of grass apart, then lay back on the blanket. He tapped a finger against the ground, a soft staccato of thumps between his words. "The thing is, he's not. Right? Because he's got us. And I remember when I first saw you with him, I thought--I thought I didn't have a chance. The way you were looking at him."

"We're just friends, Danny."

"Right, but you're not." He turned onto his side, and the look in his eyes was intense but not scared, not in any way unsure. "You keep saying that, but you're-"

A fat drop of rain landed wetly on his head. Then one landed on hers. They looked up; the storm clouds had rolled in suddenly, and a rumble of thunder had them scurrying to get up, pack up, and rush to the car not quite quickly enough. 

The conversation ended and they drove back home cursing the rain and laughing at their wet clothes.

*

The conversation didn't really end, it just got postponed to the point where everything would sort of collapse like a cake in the oven before they could return to it.

*

"Home."

"Yes, agreed," the Doctor said. He moved around the console like he didn't quite know what to do in his own body--though to be fair, that was how he moved a lot of the time--flipping switches and throwing levers. "It'll just be a moment."

Clara was sprawled over Danny's lap as he sat in a chair up in the balcony. The last few times they'd gone somewhere with the Doctor, it had tired them out completely; Clara was beginning to think their string of exhausting adventures had been deliberate. Get them so knackered that they left as soon as it was over, no lingering. Stifling a yawn, she asked, "You'll come up with us?" Danny looked at her quizzically and she told him with her face to be quiet. 

"No," the Doctor said with a kind frown. "No. You two need your rest."

"Just for some tea," Danny said. He'd figured out the same thing Clara had, apparently, and was willing to play along. "For a few minutes."

The Doctor busied himself fiddling with something. Both of them knew the TARDIS well enough now to know that he wasn't really doing anything at all. "It's fine. I have some work here and I wouldn't want to intrude."

"Hardly an intrusion if you have an invite," Danny said.

"Then perhaps I just don't want to come up," he snapped. His hand slowed before he could finish slamming it against the console, curling into a deliberate, stiff fist instead. "Give us a minute away from you two...lovebirds."

Sliding off Danny's lap with a surprised flinch, Clara said, "Sorry, didn't realize we were being so-" She didn't know how to finish that sentence, so she didn't.

There was a very long silence before the Doctor said, "You weren't." His voice was rough, low with apology. "All the same, I'd rather stay here."

"No," Danny said. He rose to his feet, indignant. "No, you'll come up--just for a minute--I hate that you're alone-"

Clara put a warning hand on his stomach, pressing him back. "Danny-"

"You hate it too," he said to her.

She did, to the point where sometimes it kept her up at night, but--"It's his choice," she said.

He sighed sharply. "It's a stupid choice."

"And yet," said the Doctor, "it is mine." He refused to meet either of their eyes. "Are we not all entitled to stupid choices?"

Danny looked like he was about to say something to that, but Clara's hand slid up to his chest and pressed more firmly. "Let him," she said, her eyes hardened and urgent. She nodded, as though she were willing him to agree with her. "Let him."

A few moments later, the TARDIS came to a stop. "We're here. You are home," the Doctor said. He stood back from the console, his arms stiff at his side and his eyes looking in any direction but theirs, standing so still but somehow buzzing with barely restrained nervous energy. "Please go."

With a look that was half lost and half angry, Danny shook his head and stalked out. Clara followed more slowly behind him; when she reached the door, she ran back, spur of the moment, and threw her arms around the Doctor's neck. She could hear him swallow as she pressed her face against his chest, pulling him down into a hug. "Take your time," she whispered. "But don't leave us for long. Promise, you stupid man."

His arms didn't fold around her, but he nodded and dropped his forehead to hers for just a moment, and that was promise enough.

*

"Long" wasn't long at all. "Long" was approximately the time it took for them to get upstairs, sit down on the couch, and turn on some really stupid television program to veg out in front of. 

There was a knock at the door. Not knowing who it was--the Doctor had a key, after all, and could come and go as he pleased--Clara got up and peered out the peephole. With a confused frown, she opened the door and waited. "Back so soon?"

The Doctor was staring at some point on the door frame, not really looking at anything at all. It was then that Clara saw it: the slightly longer hair, the slightly more tired slope of his shoulders, the slightly dark circles under his slightly red eyes. When he finally looked directly at her, she realized that "long" had been slightly longer for him than it had been for them. 

Danny came up behind her at the same time that she took the Doctor's hand and pulled him inside. "Finished sulking, are you," he quipped, not unkindly.

Then, a kiss.

Clara felt as shocked as the Doctor looked as Danny pressed his lips to the Doctor's cheek. Not bad-shocked, mind. More of an "I am shocked that I am not at all shocked by this turn of events"-shocked. With a smile, she stood on the tips of her toes and kissed the Doctor's other cheek. She kicked the door shut and pulled them both to the couch. 

They were ten minutes into a mindless soap when the Doctor, seated between them, said with vulnerable frankness, "It was a stupid choice."

Danny threw an arm around his shoulders, his fingers reaching over to nip Clara's ear playfully. "Well now you're here."

"This was probably also a stupid choice," the Doctor said. "What are we watching?"

Clara curled her legs under her and leaned into the Doctor's side. "Nothing important."

He paused and she began to feel the tension leaving his body. "I think I like nothing important."

*

They fell asleep, there on that couch. When Clara blinked awake, the sun had set and one of the Doctor's hands was in both of hers, his fingers grasping hers firmly. His head was resting against Danny's chest, and Danny's face was pressed against the Doctor's hair. They were still watching (or not) nothing important, and as she got more comfortable she decided that that show might be the most important show in the universe. 

*

Later, when the Doctor had gone--to do actual, true work on the TARDIS--Danny simply said, "You love him."

She bit at her nails a little, letting her hair hide her face. "Yeah."

"I think I do too." Her head snapped up, her eyes were wide, and she just barely caught the tail end of his shrug. “Like I can't even be jealous because I think I do too. Is that normal?”

Clara dropped her hands down, then crossed them over her chest. “Not sure anything's normal when it comes to him.”

“I think I want-” Danny stopped suddenly, unable to form the words he wanted. But Clara heard them anyway; they were echoed in her own soul, had been for some time though she hadn't been able or willing to admit it until that moment. She was, of course, the last one to have figured it out—save maybe the Doctor himself, but last after Danny, last after Lizzie certainly. 

She took his hands in hers and nodded. “Me too.”

The only problem, she thought, was getting the Doctor on the same page as them. If anyone was dumber about admitting things to themselves than her, it was him.

*

The next time they saw him, Clara almost thought to ask directly. 'Hullo Doctor, fancy a shag with the both of us'--it wouldn't do. He'd just owl at them in confusion and possibly panic and fly them into a sun by accident. And sex wasn't exactly what either of them wanted from him at any rate. A part of it, maybe, if he wanted as well, but it was more than that. 

They wanted a home with him, or as close to one as they could get, but he was very much consumed with working his console and staying away unless someone slipped a hand around his waist first. Or if someone gave him a peck on the cheek first. Or really, if someone did anything first—the Doctor was good at not taking the lead on this sort of thing. 

But he also wasn't very good at hiding, and their next adventure/accident/”terrifying life-or-death situation that was initially meant to be a holiday” led to a moment of great clarity. Adrenaline rushing through their systems after cheating death by the skin of their teeth, grimy and shaking a little, they retreated to the TARDIS and made their escape from an exploding ship full of Cybermen. Clara pulled Danny down for a deep kiss, feeling more than hearing him moan into her mouth. They only broke apart upon the realization that the Doctor was staring, openly. But it wasn't a stare of disgust, or longing, or jealousy—it was one of curiosity. A stare that asked, 'how does he feel how does she taste what is it like' and if it seemed like there was the slightest hint of 'why not me,' Clara wasn't sure whether it was real or whether she was imagining it.

“Sorry,” Clara said. She wiped her mouth self-consciously.

Danny coughed nervously, shoved his hands into his pockets. “We should get cleaned up.”

The Doctor kept staring until he seemed to realize he was staring, and his ears turned bright red as he snapped his gaze to the floor. “Yes,” he murmured, fingernail to his mouth and legs carrying him to the console. “Go, yes, I'll be here.”

They went, they came back, he was gone. Clara scrubbed her face with her hands and looked up—“Come on, old girl,” she murmured, her hand gently touching the TARDIS wall. “Where is he?” They followed the corridor the TARDIS gave them to the library. There the Doctor sat, on the ground in front of an armchair deep in the room, himself clean and in new clothes but discomfort coming off him in waves as he sat folded into himself in deep concentration. His shoulders curled inward while he worked some device with his long fingers. His knees were drawn up and pulled together, and lines cut his brow as he frowned down at the thing in his hands. 

“We should go,” Danny murmured. 

Clara began to agree. Then she remembered something, something that Lizzie had told her before she'd left. 'Grab at that thing you want and hope.' If the Doctor wouldn't grab onto it in spite of wanting it, then they had no choice—they'd simply have to grab onto him. “No,” she said. “We should stay.” 

She took him by the hand and led him into the room. The Doctor, so caught up in distracting himself, didn't hear them coming. Clara sat beside him, and Danny knelt in front of him.

When he noticed them, he blinked up at them in surprise, first Clara, then Danny. “Yes?” he asked. “I'm--busy.”

Clara glanced at Danny and then said, “You weren't in the console room.”

“I had to have a think,” he mumbled, fiddling with the mechanical thing in his hands.

Danny reached over and pulled the thing away from him. “We had a think, too. Do you like us?”

The Doctor looked almost offended at the question, and Clara could have kissed him for it. “Of course,” he said with a glare.

“Do you want anything from us?” he asked. “Anything at all? It's honesty hour. Tell us whatever you like.”

Somehow the Doctor managed to look both angry and vulnerable. “I want-” He ran his hands over his face, his long fingers covering his expression so thoroughly, but his body language exuding fear. “I don't know. None of this is new but it feels so, so new--I'm finding that I want more, but I don't know-” He cut himself off, exasperated. “I don't know what to ask.”

“I think we can help,” Danny said.

“I think we have a proposition for you,” Clara added.

The Doctor wrung his hands together, unsure what to do with them. “What is it?”

Danny took a steadying breath. Hesitantly, his hand found the Doctor's ankle, slid up his calf as he half-leaned, half-crawled forward. “Be with us.”

He seemed to struggle to understand. “I will,” he said, “I don't know-”

“Doctor,” Clara said, her hand going to his face and guiding him to her. She kissed him slowly, her lips soft against his. “We mean that you should be with us, like...be with.”

He looked like he was on the verge of a yes, but there was still confusion in his eyes. "But aren't you two-"

"Yes," Danny said, "and we'd like to be 'we three.' Would you like that?"

The Doctor looked down to where Danny's fingers were resting, then to where Clara had dropped her hand to his forearm. His frown was one of realization, like he had found something that he'd been searching for for too long. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Very much so.”

*

A jumble of knees and elbows, a laugh when things went a touch haywire, a whispered, “Is this all right?” in inexplicable Scottish brogue—and then, later, after someone had clicked off the lights, drowsiness and warmth as they curled around each other in the dark. 

Clara warmed herself against the Doctor's chest, but she wasn't sure whose feet slid against hers under the covers. “Was that what you wanted?” she asked against his skin. Behind him, Danny shifted closer, his hand creeping around the Doctor's torso to meet Clara's hand. 

The Doctor turned a little, so that he was facing neither of them in particular. “May I stay?” he asked into the room.

Danny kissed his shoulder and squeezed her hand. “You better.”

Clara grinned as she imagined the cogs churning in the Doctor's massive, dumb brain. “Then yes,” he said at length. “That was what I wanted.” 

“Good,” Danny mumbled. “Anything else you like?”

There was silence for some time. Then the Doctor said, “Jelly babies. I think I would like some jelly babies.”

With confusion on his face, Danny propped himself up slightly. “You want candy?”

“Not just any candy,” the Doctor said, and Clara could hear the frown even if she couldn't quite see it. “I want-”

“Sleep,” Danny said. His hand went to the Doctor's face, then passed over his hair. “We want sleep, don't we.”

“No,” said the Doctor. He sat up with a sense of urgency, and went to pull on his clothes. “I want—Oh, yes, forgive me-” The Doctor leaned back down and kissed each of them on the cheek, before dashing around the room putting things on. He was gone, leaving Danny and Clara to each other. 

“Did we just get blown off for sweets?” Danny asked incredulously into the darkness.

“Don't take it personally,” she replied, reaching over to pat his cheek. “He's got a very special relationship with jelly babies.”

“Well, he'd better come back,” Danny grumbled. “Told him he should stay and then he runs off for candy.”

*

The Doctor returned, sooner rather than later, with a bag of jelly babies and an insistence that Danny should try one, just one, just for him. 

Clara knew this had not been exactly what Danny had signed up for, but after she watched him sigh and resign himself to his fate, she smiled, pulled the bag from the Doctor's hands, and tugged him back down to them. 

"Oh," the Doctor whispered. "Was that wrong?"

"Maybe," she murmured, but there was no sharpness to her voice. She smiled into the dark, her glinting eyes meeting Danny's. "I know how you can make it up to us."

"How?"

"Later," said Clara, "we'll go look at the stars, and you'll point out every one we've visited." He settled in between them, and they shifted to make room. 

At length, he responded, "I think I can do that."

With a grin on her face that she knew was mirrored on Danny's, Clara burrowed closer and nuzzled against the spot where Danny's hand had pressed over the Doctor's chest. "That good enough for you, Danny?"

"That's good enough for me," he said.


End file.
